The present invention relates to an electronic musical instrument having automatic accompaniment function.
In a conventional electronic musical instrument having an automatic accompaniment function described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,056,401, a rhythm part of a given automatic accompaniment pattern is performed immediately after starting the automatic accompaniment performance, while a chord part is not performed until a certain chord is inputted and detected. Once a chord is detected, the chord part is performed continuously according to the detected chord. In the above conventional electronic musical instrument, once a chord is detected after starting the automatic accompaniment performance, the chord part is compulsorily produced according to the detected chord. Thereafter, the chord part performance is continued so that the chord tones are never stopped by any manual operation except for reducing a volume of the chord tones to a zero level. Normally, the control of the tone volume level is not conducted quickly and therefore is not practical in a real time basis performance. Consequently, the conventional automatic accompaniment method has the drawback that a player cannot select a rhythm part exclusively while inhibiting the chord part in a practical manner once starting the automatic accompaniment performance.